A seaman from Mumbai with a mission to save Libyan blue-fin tuna….Shalini Nair
Mumbai Navigating one of the two vessels along the Mediterranean waters off the coast of war-torn Libya, Captain Siddharth Chakravarty and 45 other volunteers from across the globe are raging a battle of a different sort. Armed with paint grenades, stinky butyric-acid bombs and lasers, these eco-warriors are on a crusade to save the blue-fin tuna from the brink of extinction.
Mumbai-based Siddharth is part of a campaign launched by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a marine conservation body based in Washington, to combat poaching of blue fin tunaone of worlds fastest and largest fish. With the Libyan territorial waters being declared as no-fly zone by NATO, international fishing monitor agencies are at present unable to use their helicopters to patrol the area which, from mid May to mid June, is the most lucrative spawning ground for blue-fin tuna. The tuna is in great demand among sushi connoisseurs with one blue fin commanding as much as $70,000 in the Japanese market. According to Sea Shepherd, the high price tag has led to rampant plundering reducing this species population by 80 per cent over the last four decades.
Recently, the European Union has declared the Libyan waters as a no-fishing zone as political turmoil in the country has made poaching surveillance impossible. We believe that due to the security-risks involved, the fishing of blue-fin tuna will largely go unpatrolled. We aim to take on this role, patrol the seas, intercept illegal poachers and free the nets, said Siddharth writing to Newsline from on board his ship Brigitte Bardot. Having worked for almost ten years in the Merchant Navy, Siddharth says that at some point he lost interest and an overbearing need to utilise his skills for a more meaningful and fulfilling cause took over. I stumbled upon Sea Shepherd earlier this year and wrote to them enquiring if I could be useful. They felt that I could be and here I am doing my bit for towards international conservation effort, he said.
The motley crew on board the two vessels in hostile Libyan waters are from 17 countries. Trained in combat operations, they use innovative, harmless yet highly irritating methods like stink bombs to take on the opposition and buy time so that their divers can slit nets with knives and free the fish. Besides these, we do not carry any arms or ammunition on board our ships and it is our policy to be as effective as possible, without being violent or harming anyone, said Siddharth whose role is to navigate the ship safely in the hostile waters.
Once the mission is over, Siddharth plans to join a campaign against the slaughter of pilot whales in the Faroe Islands in North Atlantic before going on to pursue his Masters in Coastal and Marine Resource management. About his efforts to stop the senseless slaughter, he adds, We have to face the simple truth and that is if the oceans die, we die.